Toy Soldiers
by xxbeyondxbirthdayxx
Summary: I had not chosen a successor. I wanted them all to be, each in their own way. I didn't want them to carry the burden alone, and I did not want them to be only detectives. I wanted them to be the race of superheroes that would have achieved what I did not.


_**Note:** First and last time I write in L POV. Because I'm bad at it, and I don't even like it XD  
Dedicated to Soulef (*hugs*) because she challenged me, even if I'm almost sure my L is totally OOC in here. Whatever. I post it anyway just to burn your eyes._

* * *

The city's reality is so distant.  
By my hotel room window, I see the skyscrapers poke out of the heavy pollution cloud, and they make me think of people standing on their toes, trying to reach for a purer air, trying to breathe, suffocated in what is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. For tourists, that is. Or for people like me, favoured.  
For the locals, it is just one more of those huge monsters that feeds on fresh flesh, swallowing them whole in a life that is just a pale reflection of human rights.

From where I stand, I only see the postcard, but I know what lies under...

Once, when I was younger, and a little too enthusiastic, the task I had accepted as my carrier making me the one in which everyone had put hope and trust, I used to blend in the population of every country I was on mission in.  
I mingled with the Chinese, exercising in the morning in the middle of a park before going back to my duty, I mixed with African tribes, eating cockroaches and dancing around a fire, I took snow bathes with the Finnish...  
Bangkok was the one that sent me back to the comfort of an air conditioned, misery free hotel room.

You haven't seen the ugly face of the earth if you never went down in the darkest parts of the city, where even God has closed his eyes and ignores his creation, because it's all so rotten that even him cannot save his children.  
And children there are. Starving, dirty, sick... sold.  
The earth doesn't cry here anymore. Probably because it's not the earth anymore, just a part of hell.

I was the one deemed able to change the world, and truth is, I got more criminals arrested than the rest of the world's police altogether. I've cleaned, I've solved, I've put names on thefts, murders.  
I've even been chosen potential successors.

And they're working so hard, so hard...  
No one knows, but every time I come to Bangkok, it is the same pain coming back full force to me. I cry myself to sleep, I feel like it is all so useless, so utterly stupid.  
One will succeed me. What for?

They are so numerous that could be a grace for the world. Why only one?  
To keep the myth?  
The myth is tired, sick of seeing the world going to its end, and to be helpless to save it. I will never, ever achieve my goal, even if I am the three world's greatest detectives. Because one of me is not enough, and one successor will not be enough either.

I shake my head and grab my suitcase. Bye bye Bangkok, hello Tokyo. This new case is appealing, yet, it is different. Kira... who are you? I will find out, just like I always do.

* * *

I feel myself slip. I am dying, I know it. Light...  
And my last thought is for Mello, Matt, Near, Linda... all the orphans that could have made the difference.  
I should have made it possible before I meet my end. It is now too late, too late...

I had not chosen a successor, because I wanted them all to be, each in their own way. I did not want them to carry the burden alone, and I did not want them to be only detectives. I wanted them to be doctors, scientists, mathematicians. I wanted them to be the race of superheroes that would have achieved what I did not.

I wanted my orphans to find the parenthood of faith, I wanted them to be the miracle I knew they could be.  
I had saved them from the drama, but they never forgot, that is what made them precious.  
They knew what it feels like to lose people that are close to you, to starve, to be threatened, to be raped, beaten. But I gave them the possibility to be children again, and it gave them the power to hope, to reach for a better world, yet to be able to feel empathy.  
The same gift that Watari gave me when he rescued me...

I fear for them. My last breath is being exhaled, and I know.  
I know what loneliness will do to each of them.  
Near, he will never know life, he will miss the warmth of a family, of friends, because I never showed him how to open up. I didn't even have the time to learn how myself...  
Linda, she will be abused, her good heart will be abused, on and on, because there will be no one to tell her she can stand for herself...  
Mello, oh God Mello... he may be one that the others will have to fight, he is the potential criminal in all of us, by hundreds multiplied.  
Matt. My greatest hope. He has never been motivated by my image. But it is said that love is the key. If so, Matt holds the whole bunch for the world's biggest questions. Maybe, even, he can distillate some of those answers in Mello. Maybe, and that's my last wish, as I fall on the ground, at least, if not the world's saviours, those two will be the incarnation of love, and that's all I can wish for humanity.

Because yes, love is the key... it holds empathy, power, hope, faith, and if Mello doesn't crush it as it dances on his palm, he will dance that dance with Matt, and the world will at least witness the miracle that is true love.

* * *

_**Note:** Yes, there's some MxM in here. I just couldn't help drifting to them, L is really not my thing, sorry. Reviews appreciated, just so I know how OOC is my L XD_


End file.
